Loss of Control
by Demyrie
Summary: He can't do anything to stop it. He can't. He'll lose her... he knows it now, and that's the worst part. So why would Wilbur come back to tell him? Simple: to feel safe. SERIOUSLYDARK, omg. Characterdeath, FrannyCornelius sorta.


A/N: I am a daaaark, evil whoooore D: OoooOOOO! Lookit me, whoring my powers of angst upon the Robinsons community! EEE.

Okay. So. Scarytime is now, kthx. My main inspiration for this story was that of, if something had HAPPENED to a future character, how would Wilbur feel coming back to see them normal in the past? Hmmmm. Darkness, you may arise from hell now.

So. Yes. I guess the only pairing is FranCornelius again. Cos I'm a dork and I actually LIKE this fandom's canonloves. Urrrrg.

Before anyone asks, no, this will not be an onrunning story. This is a one-shot: a fearsome look into what the Robinsons might be if Steven King and a dystopian author got ahold of it. I was playing with characters, and trying to create a sense of hopelessness.

So read and then go cut yourself somewhere D:

PS: I still like (and purposefully add) the fact that Wilbur calls Cornelius Lewis. Yay.

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Loss of Control

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Wilbur!"

Cornelius was never quite surprised to see the toy-red, bubble-coated time machine drift from the wide blue sky to touch down in his backyard; it wasn't a rare occurrence. The grass had even stopped growing where its wheels always rested: he told his parents it had to do with woodchucks, and Bud nodded darkly and that was that. Presently, eighteen-year-old Cornelius bolted across the yard as the hatch eased up, feeling as if the day couldn't get any better.

"Hey—" Wilbur called, looking distracted as he clambered out of the time machine, all long limbs: he grunted when he hit the grass.

Cornelius didn't notice his ankle give, but instead rushed up and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Geez! What are you _doing_ here? You trying to break a warrantee on that thing?"

"Yeah, well, guy's gotta have a hobby."

His futuristic friend had been to see him only a week previous—and looked worse for the wear, somehow—but Cornelius intended to win over Wilbur's mood with a surprise. A very special, very Robinsons surprise. He had given up trying to predict whether Wilbur planned special days to visit or not—even though it happened frequently enough to suspect some premeditation—but this date certainly was special to him.

Cornelius grabbed Wilbur's arm and, after tugging him close for something like a drive-by hug, steered him towards the Observatory door.

"Things just get too _boring_ around home?" Cornelius asked him, voice dripping with merry sarcasm. Just moments ago he'd been wishing that Wilbur could see what she was putting the finishing touches on…

"Not exactly—Lewis. _Lewis_," Wilbur bit the two syllables with ire as he dug his feet into the Picasso carpetting, pedaling and twisting to face his blond friend. Once they had come to a stop in the hallway, he ran a hand over his arm, awkwardly. "Lewis, I gotta talk to you."

Cornelius saw the young man's face in sharp relief, both pale and off-color, and doubled his conviction. Wilbur definitely needed a cheer-up; he looked like hell warmed over.

"You gotta see her," Cornelius said firmly. Without waiting for an answer, he locked his hands onto Wilbur's shoulders again, smiling. "Before we talk. Before anything!"

"Who?" Wilbur demanded, snotty streak worming out of his anxious exterior as Cornelius dragged him without shame across the house "Lewis, I already know everyone that you know; I can pretty much guarantee that if you brought a GREAT DANE GIRAFFE SQUID MUTT into this house, I'd already have—"

The two boys muscled their collective, squirming way past the two doors which had yet to be branded with music notes, and Cornelius dropped one arm from Wilbur's chest to wave enthusiastically at the pretty, dark-haired girl poised on a podium-like protrusion.

Franny turned around, head tilted slightly to the side, waiting with her hands in her girlish overalls.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, sunny and unabashed at the new person.

"He's sorry he's late!" Cornelius told her carefully, making himself heard over the anxious whine of Frankie, who hated to be disturbed before his performances. Franny bopped her star pupil on the head and laughed, looking to Wilbur.

"You come for the show too?" She asked him brightly.

If Wilbur went stiff and ceased to breathe, Cornelius was too absorbed in Franny's proud glow to notice.

"Yeah, he did—idn't that right, Wilbur?" Cornelius prompted him cheekily, digging skinny fingers sloppily into his best friend's ribs. "He's been waiting all month for this."

"You're Wilbur?" Franny asked curiously, placing (a now venerably croaking) Frankie back on the 'stage' with the other frogs.

The air was open for a self-appreciatory comment so distinctly expected of Wilbur. It never came.

"I-I'm…"

Wilbur shook his head and looked down, hand coming up to shield his eyes. Cornelius felt a tremor go through him, and instinctively shifted to see his friend's face.

He didn't try too hard, though, because when he said it, Cornelius was still surprised.

"I'm your son," Wilbur murmured, eyes weaving, nauseated, over the floor at Franny's feet. Bringing the world to a halt.

"What?" She asked, expressive brows knotting.

Cornelius, closest to Wilbur, pushed at his shoulder in shocked warning. His mouth fell open as Wilbur absorbed the nudge and freed himself, staggering forward.

"I'm your _son_," Wilbur gasped, staring up at her. She took a step back at the look in his eyes: the handsome boy in front of her was now a creature of trembling lips, wide eyes and blood-curdling disquiet. Pain. He seemed to hurt just looking at her; she crossed an arm across her chest, as if to shield him from herself. The movement made him snap out of his horror and into something else. Finding it difficult to breathe, Cornelius made a grab for his shoulder.

"Wilbur? Seriously, Wil."

Wilbur shook his head.

"Mom," he whispered, and Cornelius' blood went cold.

He had no control of his own body; acid panic and caustic need had bled into his cavities, draining him of all his shame. Franny screamed short and high when he rushed her, throwing his arms around her and crushing himself against her, this young woman he'd apparently never met before--

"Wilbur!" Cornelius shouted, running over to put his hands on a white-faced Franny, who was gazing at him desperately as his fingers, locating the threat, groped down and slipped off of Wilbur's shoulders one, two, three times. Wilbur moaned into her, smashing her curves with the slump of his body, but finally Cornelius managed to—mind fizzling, no comprehension of the scene at hand but a heavy tactile sense of Wilbur's weight on his palms—hook his arms underneath Wilbur and drag him off of her. She stumbled back until she hit the wall; her breath came shallow and fast as she watched Wilbur kick and convulse, hands clawing at Cornelius' arms.

Then he screamed, harsh and wordless, and simply started crying.

Shock and nausea grounded the scientist. He looked down at Wilbur's pain-lined face and open mouth, then up at his Franny, rattled and pale with a self-conscious hand on her aching chest. They locked eyes for a petrified second, and Cornelius started:

"Franny, I'm—"

"Is he okay?" She asked him, pretty face bruised with concern. He looked down at Wil again, then closed his mouth.

"I'm real sorry, Fran," he told her, voice strained and ardent.

She nodded, and he heaved Wilbur to his feet and closed the door behind them.

He took Wilbur to the dining room. It was closest. He closed that door too.

Once he had Wilbur in a silent room, the tall young man fell to his knees again, arms banded tightly over his chest, as if to strap in the hysteric sobs jerking their way out of him. Cornelius hit the floor with a dull sound and crawled the rest of the way, taking his best friend by the shoulders and—and he didn't mean to shake him, but it came anyway. A machine-gun impulse from his tense shoulders made him rattle Wilbur cruelly as his voice rang out:

"What's happened to her?"

Wilbur just shook his head, so carefully, face swollen from hot tears--and then they both broke: they both reached out, and made the connection. Wilbur's arms wrapped around the other young man, and Cornelius encapsulated wilbur's boyish body, clutching the other close, suffocatingly close as Wilbur continued to cry.

"What's happened to Franny?" Cornelius asked him, heart quailing in his cavernous chest. He shut his eyes as Wilbur drew breath.

"She's dead."

Cornelius' hands went limp on Wilbur's shoulders.

"She's dead," he said again, a bare whisper. They parted an inch, exposing puzzle pieces of their bodies, hot and damp with grief, to the air. Wilbur looked up at Cornelius, tear-slick face both vacant and terribly scarred.

"I'm so sorry, d-dad, I'm so sorry…"

He clung to Cornelius with a strength born of desperation, and the scientist held his son tightly. As Wilbur muttered mindlessly into his shoulder, punctuated by airless moans and hiccups, Cornelius knew, in his blank and burned mind, that he had never done this before. Never with the man who he apologized to, so ardently.

"I'm so sorry, dad."

"How does—" Cornelius began, but he couldn't even say it. His voice almost slipped, almost went spiraling down into guttural sobs, but he caught it with another, blinder question. Forcing himself through it.

"Is it an accident? Is it an injury? Something we can stop, that's why you came—"

"She got sick," Wilbur whimpered, hands digging into Cornelius' back. The sensation and the heavy ache in his chest silenced him. "She got real sick. She was—"

Wilbur had to stop. When moments did nothing to ease his tears, he spoke through them, forcing his shaking red throat to form the words.

"It was so bad, Lewis. So bad. W-we couldn't even touch her, it was so bad…"

No matter how tightly Wilbur held him, it was as if he couldn't feel it.

"How long?" Cornelius asked, softly.

"A week."

He made a sound. It was just a sound. It couldn't possibly have communicated how short a week was: how he dared not believe that someone so beautiful and vibrant could fade—be ripped from the fabric of reality--in seven short days and be gone forever. Stark, horrible empty space. Wilbur spoke again, hollowly.

"You get this thing and you're gone in a week."

"What's it called?" Cornelius demanded, furious and lost and helpless. The feeling was different from despair, and made his joints tremble: he physically dug into Wilbur, needing to lash out. "It has a name! There has to be a cure!"

"No. You're dead," Wilbur told him, staring beyond Cornelius' shoulder. He shook his head, voice barely audible. "You get it, you're dead."

Cornelius' hands loosened as the feeling went out of his body again. Wilbur's crushed quietness was hypnotic, in a way.

"Th-the whole city… it's everywhere."

Wilbur was talking about an epidemic.

"It's contagious," Cornelius murmured. Wilbur nodded again. His head sat neutrally on his bent neck.

Everyone was in danger. His family. Franny already, and his family—and suddenly he remembered what he was to that family, so many years away where Wilbur lived. He was the father. The head of the family, and the full responsibility of it hit him in the gut. He suddenly expected so much of himself, of Cornelius, but knew immediately that it wasn't so simple. Something had gone wrong.

"Wh-what am I doing?" He asked, trembling. "After all this, am I…"

"Y-you…"

Wilbur shook his head, looking like he bit down the urge to vomit. As Cornelius watched, Wilbur couldn't go on, and simply shut his eyes, making a low whine against his hands.

"I'm not taking it well," he supplied for him, voice hollow. Horror sat dense and putrid in his gut. Wilbur choked on another sob, shaking his head again.

Well, he didn't suppose he would. It was Franny.

He didn't want to think about himself, half-mad. Not speaking to his own son. Staying shut in his garage, trying to think with his eyes glazed over with obsession. Useless, crippled by the gaping hole of the spry, pretty mother—

Cornelius made another sound, wounded and low. Wilbur pressed his cheek into his best friend's shoulder, and they suffered against one another, overcome with terror: terror of certainty, and terror of waiting and knowing.

Then, suddenly, the bandy young man rose from their desperate tangle and, unsteadily as a newborn, walked toward the wall-length window of the dining room.

Cornelius couldn't stand. He remained on the floor, now propped against the peach-washed wall. His damp hand was pressed over his eyes. In a strange, few seconds, the situation disintegrated into some spineless parody of normal conversation. At the window, Wilbur spoke hollowly, and with few pauses.

"The whole city is under quarantine. God, you think you're so advanced, living in this utopia with all these high-minded philanthropists, until…" he snorted once; the sound was both stale and lifeless. "Everyone's gone animal."

Cornelius voice, like his mind, was clear and cold.

"How long have you waited to tell me this?"

It was a shrapnel-load of a question: the possibilities went everywhere. Time machines made the ordeal moot. But Wilbur looked the same—the same, save for the grey tint of his skin and red of his eyes and the mistrust in his limbs—so he demanded an answer. Wilbur shook his head.

"It's only been a few months," Wilbur swallowed, searching for words as he touched the glass, absently. "I-I lose track. This is the first time… I've been able to come and see you. S'why it's so close to the last time—I just toggled the date a week, I was in such a hurry."

The words made sense to him, slowly. Wilbur had been shut up inside for months. It could've been a year. Disease—death—made cities and homes and _people_ cramped and petrified and unwilling to face time-flow. Wilbur's saturnine disorientation infected him and left him helpless at the scope of things. Impossible.

It was just impossible.

"Your ankle?"

"Twisted it. Trying to get to the time machine."

Cornelius knew he'd made a mad dash for it, crying out in pain before heaving himself in and pressing buttons, numbers, anything that would work. And so Wilbur came back here. To him.

"Where is it?" He asked.

"The HazMat guys were about to drag it off. They've been packing up our house for weeks," Wilbur told him, voice only breaking as he finished it: "Ever since mom."

A pause, which would have been normal: had Cornelius not been backed against a wall, hand over his eyes, while Wilbur struggled to control his breathing at the window.

"The quacks say that God's pissed at us and wants us to repent," Wilbur began, serious and dull. "I dunno a thing about the guy, but it can't be God."

That thought from Wilbur's mouth struck Cornelius oddly. He looked up.

"Why?"

Wilbur turned toward him, and a want of _help_, a want of reassurance that it was all going to be okay, radiated out of him so strongly that Cornelius felt his heart cave and rot against the side of his ribs.

"Nobody's this evil, Lewis. Nobody."

Cornelius let his chin fall to his chest.

He could have asked why Wilbur was here. He could have asked what Wilbur was thinking, coming here and telling him this when it was inevitable: that his wife was going to die, he was going to go insane, and he was moving into a bleak future with no way of stopping it.

But it was simple. Wilbur needed to tell someone. If just for a moment, Wilbur needed to feel safe. Cornelius didn't know if he resented an inch of that. He probably would have done the same.

They sat in their own stark silence for a moment more, then Wilbur turned to leave. The motion seemed stupidly pedestrian, just _exiting_ a room after what was just said: there was nowhere else to _go_, so they might as well _stay_ in the room, hiding… but Wilbur had reached the door.

Stung, Cornelius made a pained sound; Wilbur looked around at him.

"Where are you going?"

_What are you going to do?_

Wilbur shrugged.

"I gotta take care of the Robinsons."

He smiled, as if it was the only thing to do. A rote impulse of nerves and cheek contractions that never made it to his eyes.

"I hope I can see you again, man."

"Me too," Cornelius answered softly.

They shook hands.

"Don't let this ruin your life," Wilbur said, pointing a finger at him. A shadow of his old charm accented the gesture. "You've still got years to go. We'll figure a way out of this somehow."

"Yeah," Cornelius said. "Yeah, I know you will."

And he believed it.


End file.
